Actions of military chief enlistment officers in Kyiv nightclub illegal

The actions of military chief enlistment officers during the searches and detention of visitors to the Jugendhub nightclub in Kyiv on the night of October 28 were illegal, Verkhovna Rada Human Rights Commissioner Valeria Lutkovska has said.

"The law does not provide for the possibility for the military registration and enlistment office to forcibly collect people on the bus, take them without police to the distribution center and hold them there for an indefinite term. These actions were illegal," she said at a press conference in Kyiv on November 2.

Lutkovska said that according to the law, the military enlistment office has the right to place a person evading the draft on the wanted list and the police should detain him, but "the military registration and enlistment office has no right to do this itself, at the club."

"I will file a petition to the defense minister on the unacceptability of such actions. I will also ask the Kyiv prosecutor and the Prosecutor General's Office to include this information in the single register of pre-trial investigations due to the unlawful deprivation of liberty of these individuals," she said.She recalled that young people detained during the searches had spent 20 hours at the military registration and enlistment office.

As reported, late on Saturday, October 28, law enforcement officers detained 17 people with drugs at a nightclub in the Shevchenkivsky district of Kyiv. At the same time, employees of the military enrollment office found 32 people who evaded the conscription. They were taken to Kyiv's draftee gathering point.

The police in Kyiv said that the actions of police officers during the searches in the Jugendhub club were legal.

On November 1, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said that 12 people detained during the searches at the Jugendhub nightclub in Kyiv had been recognized as those dodging the draft and that they were undergoing medical examination.